AIGA San Francisco

AIGA SF is the premier design community representing San Francisco, Silicon Valley, North and East Bay and the greater Bay Area. We’re also the region’s largest association for designers, which means we work with members from all disciplines, backgrounds and levels of experience. Whether you’re interested in attending, contributing or volunteering, take a moment to browse some of our projects below and see why we’re your resource for all things design.

Our Mission: What is the purpose of AIGA SF? Our organization celebrates design and provides unparalleled opportunities for networking within the local design community and a variety of resources to advance professionalism and broaden knowledge. Our events stimulate discourse and enrich our collective experience of design.

SF Design Week

Annual Design Festival

San Francisco Design Week is a community event driven by AIGA SF and a committee of representatives from multiple design disciplines in the Bay Area. From household products you use in your home and car to tech you wear or carry in your pocket, San Francisco is a hub of innovation like no other.

We’ll discuss, debate, explore, celebrate and showcase San Francisco’s broad influence on the design world and beyond.
SF Design Week spans the entire Bay Area from Silicon Valley to the city of San Francisco. With more than 60 studio tours and 200 events throughout the week featuring world-renowned designers, entrepreneurs and innovative thought leaders. We accept donations all throughout the year.

Mentorship Program

Build a stronger design community: Become an AIGA SF MENTOR or MENTEE

We’ve teamed up with our friends at Visa to create a new Mentorship Program exclusively for AIGA SF members. The program is a six-month one-on-one mentoring partnership, pairing designers with vast experience to provide encouragement, motivation, and guidance.

The deadline for the current session for applications is October 17th, 2017.

Studio Tours

Studio Tour

Join us as we get a behind-the-scenes look at the inner workings of some very influential Bay Area design studios during our Studio Tours. See projects in progress, learn about different firms’ cultures and methodologies, and rub elbows with design luminaries and up-and-comings in the environment that inspires their best work.

Compostmodern

Panel & Lecture Series

Compostmodern connects designers, scientists, and thought leaders to delve into what is known and what is predicted for our future on this planet. The potential —and urgency — of radical creativity achieved through discovery, new thinking and collaboration has never been greater.

Since its founding in 2004, Compostmodern has been an internationally recognized forum inspiring and guiding designers to transform products, industries and lives through sustainable design.

Designing Products

Panel & Workshops

Join AIGA and a panel of leading Product Designers in the Bay Area to discuss how the digital design field has evolved into a holistic product discipline.
Many people hear the word product and think of a toothbrush or a toaster and when they hear product designer, they think industrial design. However, the Bay Area is full of great product companies that design and build many types of products from computers, to speakers, to thermostats, to websites and to apps.

These products bring together a variety of designers to create something people can see, touch and use. Whether you’re an industrial designer, user experience designer, interaction designer, graphic designer, illustrator or user researcher, if you’re working on a product or product team, you’re a Product Designer. This series breaks down the silos of design disciplines and celebrates the evolution of product design as a multi-disciplinary field.

Design//Work

Panel Discussion Series

A series of panel discussions for designers looking for career opportunities. Whether you’ve just graduated, emerging, changing careers or getting back into the swing of it after taking some time off, this series will help by offering insight and resources from some of the top talent and companies in the bay area.

Enrichment Scholarship

Scholarship Fund & Awards

The Enrichment Scholarship was created by AIGA San Francisco to enhance the quality and diversity of design education, and invest in the future of our students and design education. Each year we award the scholarship at our annual Portfolio Day.
We accept donations for the scholarship throughout the year so please consider donating!

Women Lead Initative

Celebrating and fostering women’s achievements in design.
Women today outnumber men in AIGA’s membership—as in design schools and disciplines—yet leadership, representation, and parity remain a challenge.

The AIGA Women Lead Initiative (WLI) is committed to empowering women in design and advancing the vital discourse on issues facing professional women today without generalizing or segregating women designers.

Instead, we aim to address persistent biases and inequities inclusively and constructively through programming around three goals:
– Celebrate the achievements of women in design.
– Cultivate awareness of gender-related issues, while building knowledge and leadership skills.
– Connect by facilitating relationships within and beyond the design industry.

Diversity & Inclusion

Task Force

Encouraging diversity in design education, discourse, and practice to strengthen and expand the relevance of design in all areas of society. Celebrate. Cultivate. Connect.

Despite progress made over the course of AIGA’s 100-year history, especially since its landmark 1991 symposium (“Why is graphic design 93% white?”), there are vast opportunities to support a more diverse audience of design students, practitioners, managers, thinkers, enthusiasts, clients, consumers, and policy makers. The AIGA SF Diversity Committee aims to expose diverse populations to the value

of design, foster ethnic/cultural diversity in design, to be inclusive of divergent thoughts, and to nurture creative diversity across disciplines.
A key aspect of our work is to connect the AIGA with organizations in the Bay Area already working with minority or at-risk communities, and introduce them to design in a way that reflects the design process and the professional landscape. In order to be fully inclusive of these existing programs, the following criteria is always considered:

Design Exposure—Activities are rooted in the design process and design thinking, framing those elements in appropriate ways for each audience.

Customization—Programs are built to fit in seamlessly within the structures already in place at each location.

Achievable Success—Whether it’s a 3-month or 3 hour event, we determine a clear, achievable outcome for students, with the aim of creating a successful, positive experience for them.

Portfolio Day

Portfolio Review

Known as the biggest and the best portfolio review on the West Coast, this is an opportunity to get valuable one-on-one feedback on your portfolio and career goals from some of the Bay Area’s best designers. Over 100 top Bay Area designers will serve as reviewers.

This event is open to students, emerging designers, those who are returning to the profession after some time off, changing career paths or anyone looking for guidance and feedback.
You will receive multiple reviews throughout the day from experts in the field spanning a range of disciplines. Practice your one-on-one interviewing skills with design professionals and receive valuable feedback on your portfolio.

The History of Design in Silicon Valley

Lecture Series

History never looks like history when you are living through it. Journalist Michael Malone of the San Jose Mercury News once said, “Silicon Valley is perpetually young. It’s always made up of the next generation of bright young entrepreneurs showing up… and they start their own companies. We’re not real big on history around here. We don’t look back very much.”

Yet when we do, it’s evident that Big “D” and little “d” design have been an integral part of the evolution of Silicon Valley since the 1950s. Today, nearly all innovation in Silicon Valley is rooted in design, in some way: our present design culture is the living sum-total of our past.
There are many design histories —product design, interaction design, graphic design, and architecture design — and AIGA SF would like to explore and chronicle not just the development of each but also how they are intertwined.

Fellows Award

Award + Reception

The AIGA San Francisco Fellow Award recognizes seasoned designers and other major figures who have made a significant contribution to raising the standards of excellence in practice and conduct within the Bay Area design community and the AIGA SF chapter. Our Fellows are honored for their design practice and other contributions in a range of areas, including education, writing, and leadership.

They are honored annually at the Continuum Awards Ceremony in the spring. This event not only recognizes our design heritage, but looks to plant seeds for the future as a fundraiser for our Enrichment Scholarship.

Traveling Lounge

Happy Hour/Meet-Up

The Traveling Lounge is a monthly meet-up offering a great opportunity to get together and network; whether you are looking to expand your connections, find inspiration amongst your peers or bounce some ideas off of like-minded people, we are creating a space for that.

We’ll tell you where and when. You do the rest (bring your ideas, business cards and cash for a few drinks). There is no formal structure – just come out, have a drink, share a bite and meet your fellow Creatives!
Look for Karla or Mark (look for the name tags) and will be happy to introduce you to other attendees!

D.Talks /Design Talks

Panel Discussions

D.Talks is an ongoing series of panel discussions presenting practical information about current trends and hot topics in the world of design and business. Our goal is to foster robust dialog and critical thinking, so crowd participation is an integral part of each event.

Designer as Founder

Fireside Chat

Designer as Founder is a series of conversations with successful designers-turned-founders such as Joe Gebbia, CPO and Co-founder of AirBnB, Christina Broadbeck of YouTube, Danny Kim of Lit Motors and more. We’ll hear stories, challenges and triumphs about his leap from the role of designer on a creative team to a founding role in creating a new business like no other.

Now more than ever, designers are being asked to take on the role of thought leader, technologist and creator of new innovative products. The goal of this series is to have a concrete conversation about what it takes to make ideas happen in this new environment. Join us for an action-oriented discussion with moderator Philip Wood and some of the most inspiring designer founders in the San Francisco Bay Area.